fair play is less characteristic of groups than of individuals.

The perfectly natural thing to do with an unreadable book is to give it away; and the publication, for more than a quarter of a century, of volumes which fulfilled this one purpose and no other is a pleasant proof, if proof were needed, of the business principles which underlay the enlightened activity of publishers.

There are few things more wearisome in a fairly fatiguing life than the monotonous repetition of a phrase which catches and holds the public fancy by virtue of its total lack of significance.

the pleasure of possession, whether we possess trinkets, or offspring - or possibly books, or prints, or chessmen, or postage stamps - lies in showing these things to friends who are experiencing no immediate urge to look at them.

A vast deal of ingenuity is wasted every year in evoking the undesirable, in the careful construction of objects which burden life. Frankenstein was a large rather than an isolated example.

The man who never tells an unpalatable truth 'at the wrong time' (the right time has yet to be discovered) is the man whose success in life is fairly well assured.

Need drives men to envy as fullness drives them to selfishness.